Wednesday, 8 October 2014

The conversion work is all done on this guy now. I had to change a few things along the way, but that's all part of the fun :)

I changed the bracket's on his forearm -after almost completing his mods- as I want happy with how bulky it looked. So I ripped it all back off & started again, with a more detailed bracket.

It was a real pain in the butt putting rivets that small on him, their the smallest I've ever tried. And I've yet to find a tried & true way of placing them on objects, without half of them glueing themselves to other things.....including me. But if you want things to look agricultural they are a must to finish off with.

Here's the first incarnation of the conversion;

I used a cable clip as an arm brace, but it ended up obscuring
his forearm to the point that I may as well have just cut it off!

So, here's what I ended up doing;

I think it looks much better this way.

You can see some of the bits & bobs I've used.

Once it's undercoated it should hopefully look like a coherent miniature, instead of a collection of "things", as it does now.

I'm still undecided on what colour to paint his armour in. I'm toying with the idea of using an old space marine chapter paint scheme, like he stole it from a dead marine or something. We will see.

Tuesday, 7 October 2014

The first Space Ork miniature to be produced (in mid 1986) by Citadel wasn't even called an "Ork". They had not decided if they should differentiate the Greenskins monikers by their respective settings. So this first release was called LE1 Space Orc. After him, and from them on in, Orcs in 40k were to be referred to as Orks.

Here he is, incorrectly listed (someone at Citadel must have mashed the wrong key while typing up the catalogue);

This catalogue listing was not how I first came across this miniature. My initial spying of him was in Dave Andrews iconic diorama, printed in Rogue Trader.....must have seen it around 1988.

Here he be;

Can you spot him? His the one raining hot lead onto the
unsuspecting Ultramarine's from above.

Top left of the image is where his at.

Here's a close up of him;

When I first noticed this guy I had no idea who or what he was. All I knew was that I thought he looked cool! His skin tone made me think he was some sort of ogre? But I never came across him in any of the White Dwarfs or any other publication from that time. I gave up after a short while of ever finding this mini.

It was only years later -I'd say about fifteen years later- that I stumbled upon him while trawling Ebay. I put in a bid and won him at a pretty good price, but once I had him in my hot little hands I was somewhat disappointed. In my eyes, his weapon looked awful, like something that was hurriedly added on due to a casting deadline that had to be met. Even though the rest of the sculpt looked great (the detailed backpack especially) he was relegated to the "something to tinker with later pile", as my conversion skills back then were dismal.

Now, fast forward a few years. The other day I spotted Ernys' Orctober post and thought, what the hey, I'll dig up this little sucker & see if I can improve his mediocre death spitter.

So, after that rambling introduction, here's the meat of the post.....the conversion work on LE1 Space Orc;

Offensive weapon removed & the forearm cleaned up.

Test fit his new & improved weapon.

Bent his arm into a more upright position & then fixed the
weapon permanently.

Looks a damn sight more intimidation than the original IMO.

I decided on using this big arse flamer (I know what the donor miniature looks like, but for the life of me I just can't remember his bloody name!) after seeing his gas bottles on his backpack. I figured that if an Orc could breathe it, then it should be lethal enough to ignite.

I've still got a bit of work -conversion wise- to do on him before he'll be ready to paint. Like a propellant line to the flamer, bracketry to join his weapon to his forearm and other bits & pieces to "pimp" him up a bit.

WIP-REVIEW: More scenery for Robotech!
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First update of this year!
I've been building the scenery sets from 4Ground I have so far:
Primera actualización del año!
He estado armando los sets de escen...